Dead windows of houses, empty streets, ominous silence. This is not a horror movie, these are real cities left by people. Why did it happen?
Hasima, Japan
The reason is economic feasibility. The island is the epitome of Japanese hard work. Once a rock fragment served as a temporary refuge for fishermen from Nagasaki. Until a coal deposit was discovered there.
Industry was developing in the country, the find came in handy. Waste rock from the ground was poured into the sea, creating a small island around the rock.
With the help of slag from mining, the space for industrial buildings and residential buildings was leveled. The high concrete fortifications made the island look like a battleship.
The workers lived in very cramped conditions, the population density on the island in the middle of the 20th century was considered the highest in the world. To this it is worth adding imported food and water in order to understand in what conditions people worked.
By the end of the 1960s, coal was replaced by oil. The mine owners began to retrain workers in other specialties. They were sent to other places for the demanded production.
Hasima has been a ghost island since April 1974, when the last inhabitants left it. Now excursions are organized there.
Varosha, North Cyprus
The reason is war. Once a thriving resort town, a suburb of Famagusta, has stood empty for almost half a century. Not in the north, not in the desert, but on the Mediterranean coast.
Since the late 60s of the 20th century, Varosha has been a fashionable expensive resort. Only wealthy tourists rested in its luxury hotels. Luxury private villas, expensive boutiques, nightclubs. Farther from the first line were ordinary high-rise buildings. Those who worked in the hotel business lived in them.
Tourist Eden ended at the height of the 1974 season. The coup d'état, which the Greeks tried to accomplish, ended in failure. Turkish troops occupied most of Cyprus. The Greeks were expelled from Varosha, they were allowed to take only what they could carry in their hands. And the town became a zone of delimitation.
More than 100 hotels, one of them opened on the eve of the coup, almost five thousand houses - all this stands empty on the shores of the magnificent sea bay. It is strictly forbidden to enter it, and large fines are imposed for violation. In the late 70s, journalists visited the closed and carefully guarded empty city. The sight of empty rooms with furniture, houses where dishes were left on the tables seemed creepy to them.
Later the winners plundered Varosha. There are only buildings that are slowly decaying. Yes, a luxurious beach with fine clean sand, which would have been awarded the Blue Flag for its quality today.
Villa Epecuen, Argentina
The reason is human intervention in natural processes. "Argentine Atlantis" - this is the name the ghost town received deservedly. Founded in the 1920s for the extraction of salt from Lake Epequin, the city has gradually turned into a salt resort.
The number of tourists increased and the city authorities expanded the lake. A decade later, it began to gradually flood the beach and houses. The constructed dam did not help. Once she could not stand it, and the water rushed into the city.
The main thing is that people managed to escape. And everything that was built over decades, houses, cafes, bars and schools, went under water in a few hours. Since 1993, the city has been under water. After 10 years, the water began to gradually drain. Today the city, with ruins of houses and trees dead from salt, makes a depressing impression. It is amplified by the howling of the wind in the ruins.
This did not scare the former resident Pablo Novak. As soon as his house emerged from the water, he settled in it, becoming the only inhabitant of the city.
Pripyat, Ukraine
The reason is a man-made disaster. The city is included in the UNESCO World Heritage Site. As evidence of the most terrible man-made disaster in the history of mankind.
The event shocked the whole world, and there is no person who does not know about it. In addition, Pripyat is the largest of the ghost towns. After the nuclear accident, 50,000 residents had to be evacuated.
Decontamination work was carried out in the contaminated zone, the radiation level was reduced. But you can't live here for at least 100 years.
An empty city makes a painful impression, but it would not be entirely correct to call it a ghost. There is a checkpoint, a garage for cars that take out radioactive waste, a laundry for cleaning workers' clothes from radiation.
Today you can go there for an excursion. The city was also chosen by modern stalkers who want to plunge into the atmosphere of the consequences of a global cataclysm.
Plymouth, Antilles
The reason is a natural disaster. Plymouth was the only city and port on the island of Montserrat in the Lesser Antilles archipelago. The island, discovered by Columbus, officially belongs to Great Britain.
The economic profile of sugarcane cultivation has changed dramatically in the last century. This tropical paradise is finally appreciated by tourists. Plymouth flourished until 1995. Until the volcano Soufriere Hills awoke from 400 years of sleep.
He announced his awakening with a series of enchanting explosions. A month later, with another explosion, such a cloud of ash came out that the city had to be evacuated. Then magma poured out. In the spring of 1997, those who remained on the island could see the terrifying picture of a volcanic explosion. This avalanche of ash, hot gases and rock debris reached a height of 12 kilometers. And it raced with incredible speed.
Plymouth was covered with a multi-meter layer of volcanic rocks and ash. The mixture quickly froze, and it became impossible to save the city. And the volcano continued to be active.
Today, the misfortune of the island, which deprived it of fertile fields, port and airport, has become a source of livelihood for the remaining inhabitants. Volcanic sand is the only export item.
In the past few years, cruise ships have started to stop at Montserrat. Tourists are attracted by the atmospheric ruins of a ghost town, reminiscent of an atomic bomb, and a smoking volcano.
